Gerry McGee:Shortly after, McCulloch left Wings to join the reformed Small Faces. He publicly said that he was disappointed Wings hadn't evolved into a total band.
"I'm sure (Paul) knows, and everyone knows that it can never be. As a touring band, it'll never be like other bands where you see the other members when you're not working. With Wings, it's get the work done and get home. (...) I left amicably. I don't think anyone was too upset about the parting. We had some very good times together. Though Linda doesn't know much about music, she's really a nice chick. And I certainly learned a lot over the past two years.”
When Paul was asked about Jimmy McCulloch's exit, he replied, ''It was just one of those things. When you think about it, it's really difficult to set up something like a stable group, because in my position you get all sort of weird little problems that you can't do much about. Say I decided to do it one way and a guitar player wants to do it another way. It becomes very difficult then, unless he comes up to me and tells me, 'Look, I wanna do it this way.'
"What was happening was that tension was just building up a bit and we didn't really feel like we (were) quite fitting. It was just getting to the point where we were either gonna do another album that was going to be hard to do and keep on arguing, or else we were just gonna decide that we don't need all that stuff and get on with the music. That's exactly what happened. Jimmy decided to leave . . . Luckily he'd done all the required stuff on the album that we wanted him to do, so it worked out quite well for us."
Joe English followed suit, longing as well to be part of a real musical team. He complained that Linda was pulling the band down and that he was not a fan of Denny Laine, either. Like others before him, English had not seen any of the royalties he said were promised when he joined the group. In regard to Joe English, Paul said he left because "he wanted to spend more time with his family in Georgia . . . He just wanted to go back home, really. He'd had enough of England after four years." Denny felt that English left because "he'd made some money, bought a house and got his Porsche."
Philip Norman:The real problem was that, behind Wings' fun-family façade, English had acquired a heroin habit even worse than Jimmy McCulloch's and spent most of his earnings on it. By his own later admission, he overdosed two or three times, once stayed unconscious for 24 hours and grew accustomed to waking up with no idea where he was.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Gerry McGee:Having gone through five members in seven years, Paul failed to realize that perhaps it was his unbending ways that had caused the upheavals in Wings. Or was he simply a poor judge of character? "I tend to forget people have to more or less live together and if there's a bit of bitchiness on a tour or during something boring like rehearsals," Paul admitted. ''We need people who make that side of it very easy for each other . . ." The pair's leaving did not bring an end to Wings, as Denny Laine continued to remain faithful to the McCartneys. Clipped to the core once again, Paul and Denny got together to collaborate. One of the songs they worked out was 'Mull of Kintyre.' Paul had written the chorus in the summer of 1976, and then put the song away until the following year, when he showed it to Denny. Together the pair completed the music and lyrics. The song became the unofficial anthem of Scotland, complete with bagpipes and guitars. Writing with Paul worked well, Denny indicated, even if he wasn't always given credit for his efforts. "Arrangement-wise we come with better things," he said of collaborating, ''word-wise better things. Things that suit our voices for harmonies." As for the actual Mull of Kintyre, Denny recalled that the place had an old lighthouse, a decrepit hotel, and a cemetery. "It was the worst shithole in the world," Denny told author Geoffrey Giuliano. "I wouldn't wish the place on my worst enemy." But the lyrics and arrangement to the song compensated for any beauty that may have been lacking in the actual place.
